The new Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, General Abdolrahim Mousavi, warned on Tuesday residents of the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa to evacuate as soon as possible in view of the imminent launch of new ‘punitive’ missile attacks against Israel, while many Israelis have been trying for days to flee the country for the neighbouring island of Cyprus, according to the local press.
‘The punitive operation is coming,’ Mousavi said in a video broadcast on Iranian state television, quoted by international and Iranian media, asserting that the strikes launched so far on Israeli territory were only warnings with a ‘deterrent’ character. ‘We seriously advise residents of the occupied territories—especially in Tel Aviv and Haifa—to evacuate for their own safety,’ said Mousavi, who called on Israelis not to not ‘become pawns in Netanyahu’s beastly ambitions’.
Iran announced just this Tuesday the launch of its ‘10th wave of Operation Honest Promise against the occupied territories (Israel)’, including drones and missiles, Iranian television reported, marking the 5th consecutive day of undeclared war between Iran and Israel, despite the Israeli army and Trump himself claimed in recent hours to have ‘full aerial superiority‘ over the skies of Iran or at least its capital, Tehran.
Hundreds of Israelis try to flee the country by sea
Meanwhile, hundreds of Israelis have been trying in recent days to flee the country by sea to Cyprus, according to newspapers such as Haaretz, which reports that these people – most of them alone, although some in couples and fewer with families – are crowding into ports of cities such as Herzliya, Haifa or Ashkelon, where owners of small boats are organising trips to Cyprus, with up to 10 passengers each way. This is what the Israeli press has dubbed as the ‘Escape Flotilla’.
With airspace closed and all flights abroad cancelled by the Israeli government, flight by sea is one of the few alternatives left to the Israeli population who want to flee and escape the terror sown by the continuous missile attacks launched from Iran, which have already caused dozens of deaths mainly in Tel Aviv and Haifa.
According to some media, most of these people try to hide their identity or pass themselves off as foreigners, but in reality many of them are Israeli citizens who – themselves or their parents – emigrated from other countries and still retain dual citizenship, so they are now trying to return to their countries of origin, in many cases Europe or the United States, but also Russia or Ukraine. Only a few, however, admit to being Israeli citizens trying to escape the escalating conflict and bombardment, and the few who do speak do so without cameras or microphones to give them away. Some pay up to 6,000 shekels (about 1,500 euros) to escape by boat to Cyprus, where they hope to catch a plane to another destination.
The scale of this new ‘exodus’ to scape from Israel and Iran’s bombardment is not yet clear, and even the Israeli authorities themselves – who admit the existence of this phenomenon – are unable to quantify how many Israelis are trying to escape; but it is a fact that Facebook groups dedicated to organising such escape routes have skyrocketed on the Internet, and that with each passing day and each missile that falls on Haifa or Tel Aviv, this is not a diminishing phenomenon, but a growing one.
With new threats from Iran, a risk of all-out war in the region and no prospect of peace in the short term, the Netanyahu government’s ban on flights out of the country for the duration of the conflict only increases the anxiety and desperation of Israelis to find a way out as soon as possible.
VOTE
EDITORIAL TEAM
🧿 About us
.
Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
…
📣 Your ADVERTISING on Hispanatolia
.
🤗 HELP US WITH A DONATION:
💗 Paypal
